Jaffery eBook

to Jericho, becomes desperately enamoured of the elfin
princess. There he is, great, ruddy, hairy wretch:
there she is, a wraith of a creature made up of thistledown
and fountain-bubbles and stars. He stares at
her, stretches out his huge paw to grab a fairy, feathery
tress of her dark hair. Defensive, she puts up
her little hand. Its touch is an electric shock
to the marauder. He blinks, and rubs his arm.
He has a mighty respect for her. He could take
her up in his fingers and eat her like a quail—­the
one satisfactory method of eating a quail is unfortunately
practised only by ogres—­but he does not
want to eat her. He goes on his knees, and invites
her to chew any portion of him that may please her
dainty taste. In short he makes the very silliest
ass of himself, and the elfin princess, who of course
has come into contact with the Real Beautiful Young
Man of the Story Books, won’t have anything
to do with the Ogre; and if he is more rumbustious
than he ought to be, generally finds a way to send
him packing. And so the poor Ogre remains, planted
there. The Fairy Tales, I remark again, are very
true in demonstrating that the Ogre loves the elf and
not the Ogress. But all the same they are deucedly
unsympathetic towards the poor Ogre. The only
sympathetic one I know is Beauty and the Beast; and
even that is a mere begging of the question, for the
Beast was a handsome young nincompoop of a Prince
all the time!

Barbara says that this figurative, allusive adumbration
of Jaffery’s love affair is pure nonsense.
Anything less like an ogre than our overgrown baby
of a friend it would he impossible to imagine.
But I hold to my theory; all the more because when
Adrian and I returned from our stroll round the garden,
we found Jaffery standing over her, legs apart, like
a Colossus of Rhodes, and roaring at her like a sucking
dove. I noticed a scared, please-don’t-eat-me
look in her eyes. It was the ogre (trying to
make himself agreeable) and the princess to the life.

Presently tea was brought out, and with it came Barbara,
a quiet laugh about her lips, and Liosha, stately
and smiling. My wife to put her at her ease (though
she had displayed singularly little shyness), after
dealing with maid and taxi, had taken her over the
house, exhibited Susan at tea in the nursery, and
as much of Doria’s trousseau as was visible
in the sewing-room. The approaching marriage aroused
her keen interest. She said very little during
the meal, but smiled embarrassingly on the engaged
pair. Jaffery stood glumly devouring cucumber
sandwiches, till Barbara took him aside.

“She’s rather a dear, in spite of everything,
and I think you’re treating her abominably.”

Jaffery grew scarlet beneath the brick-coloured glaze.

“I wouldn’t treat any woman abominably,
if I could help it.”

“Well, you can help it—­” and
taking pity on him, she laughed in his face.
“Can’t you take her as a joke?”